


That Love Whose View is Muffled Still

by ShitpostingfromtheBarricade



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, American Football, Angst with a Happy Ending, Don't copy to another site, Enjolras POV, Enjolras is slightly problematic with the best intentions, M/M, Marching Band, Minor time skips from chapter to chapter, Month indicated in chapter name, Romeo and Juliet References, Secret Relationship, instance of f-slur (tagged within), offscreen underaged drinking, the epic highs and lows of high school football
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21813517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade/pseuds/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade
Summary: “What exactly has a goody seventeen-shoes such as yourself done to piss off your higher-ups?”A tired sigh escapes Enjolras.  “I do want to preface this by saying that none of this is intended as an attack on the people who play football, only the people who insist on perpetuating and encouraging not only the culture of toxic masculinity that surrounds it but also the very institution of pressuring people into sacrificing their health and wellbeing for a violent pastime with well-known and -documented medical repercussions.”“I see.”“As it would turn out, people aren’t a fan of that.”A high school marching band/football Romeo and Juliet-style AU.Warnings:offscreen underaged drinking, f-slur (specific warning within)
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 113
Collections: Les Mis Holiday Exchange (2019)





	1. August

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BookDragon24601](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookDragon24601/gifts).



> To fulfill the prompt, "Enjoltaire high school AU where Enjolras is a marching band drum major and Grantaire is on the football team. Secret dating and fluff ensues. (set during the holidays at some point) Kind of Romeo and Juliet type modern AU but no one dies and it ends well."
> 
> As always, one thousand thanks to [PieceOfCait](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PieceOfCait/pseuds/PieceOfCait) for being the best beta-reader and friend ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Terminology:**  
>  _Varsity_ \- There are usually two levels of sports teams in school, Varsity and Junior Varsity. If you try out and don't get into Varsity, you might still be accepted onto the Junior Varsity (JV) team. Especially in big schools, getting into Varsity can be very competitive.  
>  _Drum Major_ \- The conductor of a marching band, it is also a leadership role within the band. This is an audition-only role. Most marching bands will have two or three.  
>  _Drumline_ \- marching percussion section (bass, snares, cymbals, tenor[s] [drums])  
>  _Pit_ \- standing percussion section (marimbas, vibraphones, xylophones, timpani); always has a lot of equipment to get out and put away for rehearsals  
>  _Kicker_ \- a position in American football (you don't need to know more than this)
> 
> Americans use "college" and "university" interchangeably: you attend high school until you're eighteen. Technically-speaking, a college by American definition only offers undergrad degrees (2- and 4-year programs) and universities also have grad programs, but the average person will use "college" indiscriminately.

_This is_ boring.

Crashing the party had seemed like a good idea when Enjolras was still fuming over the football team’s latest stunt. Now that he’s here, it’s loud and uncomfortable, and his best friends are probably off making out in some unsuspecting corner that he isn’t particularly interested in stumbling across. Still, after two grueling weeks of band camp for eight hours a day with distasteful pranks plaguing the breaks they did receive over the hottest points of the day, he knows that he, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac are hardly the only party crashers, and with school starting next Monday it’s the least he can do to humor his friends’ efforts.

 _Doesn’t make it any less_ boring.

About an hour ago he’d found a quiet-ish balcony to escape the people and the noise, which provides the benefit of not drawing a giant target on his back for any football player who can identify him on-sight but is accompanied by the setback of isolating him from anyone who might offer remotely interesting conversation.

His reverie is startled by the sound of a door opening and closing behind him. He ducks preemptively, peering around the glass entryway before straightening up again: it’s no one he recognizes, from the football team or otherwise. The man is tall and broad, dark curls pulled back in a blunt ponytail and movements smooth (probably eased by beers from the foyer) as he advances toward the terrace.

 _“Jesus,”_ swears the man suddenly, dropping something once he’s almost at the veranda in favor of clutching a hand to his chest. “Fucking party axe murderer or something?” 

Enjolras’s eyebrows raise, unimpressed, as the other man crouches to retrieve what he’d dropped: a cigarette. “Do you see any axes?”

“I didn’t even see you, who’s to say what manner of creative torture devices you might have out there?” Despite his words, the man seems to have fully recovered and continues blithely to the balcony. “You smoke?”

“I value my health and that of others.” Also, he’s in high school.

“Yeah, same, but there’s nothing like a smoke to settle yourself after a couple hours of drinking.”

“I don’t drink.”

It’s the other man’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “Goody two-shoes?”

“Seventeen,” he responds flatly.

“Seventeen shoes, huh? Must be extra good.”

Unsure of whether or not the man is willfully misunderstanding him or sincerely so drunk that he doesn’t realize that Enjolras is indicating his age, the comment goes ignored. “I’ll leave you to it, then—”

“Wait, no.” Looking back, Enjolras sees his unexpected visitor scratching bashfully at his scalp. “I could use some sober company.”

Enjolras’s eyes fall to the unlit cigarette still between the other man’s fingers.

The man follows the look, sighing as he tucks the offending item behind his ear. “You know you just have to be eighteen to _buy_ them, right? Nothing illegal about smoking them.”

Taking a cautious step back toward the veranda, Enjolras’s eyes narrow. “And what’s your logic behind the drinking?”

“I like to live dangerously,” comes the man’s response, accompanied by a wicked grin. It looks good on him.

“Dangerously enough to risk your future?”

“What, you mean college? Since we both know _real_ jobs don’t care.” A derisive snort follows. “Awfully classist of you to assume I have collegiate intentions—though I suppose I should be flattered.”

Realizing the snare he’s talked his way into, Enjolras stammers. “Well, I mean—”

“Not all of us can afford college, Sunshine. This isn’t Arendell or Sweden or any of those other made-up countries with free education.

“And anyway,” the man continues, “not everyone needs college. Plenty of vocational skills one can learn without engaging in the national pastime of plunging into the depths of student debt. I mean, it’s America, so we have other kinds of debt to engage in too: between the housing market, healthcare, insurance—hell, even the growing international requisite for a working cell phone, like. There’s a reason people in Animal Crossing are always in deep with Tom Nook, right? Even in this perfect fantasy world, you’re always beholden to someone or something: it gives you purpose. And this purpose, it’s one of Maslow’s needs, though whether you want to categorize it under safety, belonging, esteem, or self-actualization depends on your personal philosophy as well as the type of job you have, I guess. In this economy, I’d argue that despite most literally being categorized under ‘safety’ it’s been more or less equated for those living from paycheck to paycheck with physiological needs—”

Enjolras allows the man to prattle on, listening in rapt silence. It’s nothing he hasn’t considered before, but he never could have anticipated having his own thoughts echoed back to him unprompted, at an end-of-the-summer rager no less.

“—anyway, that’s more or less how I finally came to the conclusion that Rousseau had one thing and one thing alone right: _quand les pauvres n'auront plus rien à manger, ils mangeront les riches.”_ The pronunciation is terrible, and Enjolras tries to bite back an amused smile as the man flushes. “Or whatever. I don’t speak French.”

“You just memorize French quotes.”

“It’s more precise,” says the man defensively, “and this way I still maintain my hipster status of wanting to eat the rich before it was cool. Though if we look at late 80’s and early 90’s hard rock we also see a lot of anti-establishment sentiments, including two—”

Laughter interrupts the renewed ramble, and it takes a moment for Enjolras to realize it’s his own. He worries for a beat that he may have offended his conversational partner, but the fear is dismissed when the other man joins in with his own snicker, quickly growing to a full-on giggle. 

As their mirth abates and they catch their breath, Enjolras tries to return to the conversation. “You don’t honestly believe that, though.”

“What, in the class struggle?”

“Oh no, that’s real and documented,” Enjolras tells the man seriously. “The existence of billionaires is an insult to society as we know it.”

“Attaching a number to an unfixed value—”

“One million seconds is less than twelve days. One billion seconds is almost thirty-two years: currency is not the issue when we’re looking at a discrepancy on this kind of scale.”

“Fine, proceed.”

“Thank you.” It’s nearly strange to actually be heard out, rather than having to fight to have what he says listened to. “Rousseau had plenty of great philosophies.”

“Oh yeah, one to complement whatever the fashionable opinion of the day was, and two if he was feeling particularly devoid of limelight.”

In spite of himself, Enjolras feels a smile rising to his face. “Well what about in his second discourse, where he poses that private property is a scheme by the rich to oppress the poor?”

“Monkeys and typewriters: this is the same discourse where he proposed that people are inherently good but too stupid to be good to one another.”

“And?”

“And you agree with that?” The other man scoffs, removing the cigarette from behind his ear and fiddling with it over the edge of the balcony. “God, I bet you like Kant too.”

“Like you didn’t like The Good Place.”

It’s a guess, but apparently it’s a good one: the man laughs again, and the sound settles warmly over Enjolras. “The Good Place is a nice allegory and very well-written, but in practice it falls short.”

Enjolras awaits further explanation, looking expectantly up at the man beside him. 

When the dark-haired man finally meets his eye, he gives a look of surprise, brows raising. 

“You can’t honestly make a statement like that without knowing you’ll have to defend it.”

“Can’t say I’m used to others wanting to hear the defense,” the other man admits. “I am a bit parched, though.”

“Alcohol has that effect, I hear.”

“You seem to hear a lot,” grins the stranger, rolling his eyes. It’s too dark to determine their color, even by moonlight, but Enjolras finds that he wants to. “How about I top myself up and grab you something while I’m inside? They have a couple types of pop.”

Enjolras shakes his head. “I don’t drink soda.”

“Oh?” The man’s tone turns teasing. “Is it Big Sugar’s modernday slave labor? Coca-Cola’s status as biggest producer of plastic waste for the second year running? Boycott against Nestlé as a corporation? Predatory advertising practices? Don’t tell me it’s the health implications.”

Feeling his face flush slightly, Enjolras confesses, “The carbonation hurts my mouth.”

The answer is met with another delighted laugh. “I’ll see if I can dig up some water.”

“Filtered is better than bottled,” Enjolras tells him, because he _does_ still hate Nestlé and plastic waste, “but I’ll take tap in a pinch.”

“The finest tap water in the house,” assures the dark-haired man, eyes crinkled and twinkling. “I’ll be right back.”

Returning to his position facing the night sky, a thrum of exhilaration pulses through Enjolras. It’s been a long time since he’s been able to have such an engaging conversation with someone whom he hasn’t already been friends with for years, and this is certainly the last place he expected to find it. He’s vaguely aware that the discussion has taken on a slightly flirtatious undertone, but where that would normally leave him feeling vaguely uncomfortable, tonight he finds himself almost leaning into it. So long as he doesn’t find out that his conversation partner is a conservative— 

Is he though?

Enjolras glances toward the door. It seems unlikely that he’d vote for Trump, but that doesn’t rule out that the man might be a libertarian. His skepticism of Kant’s belief that people would have others’ best interests at heart given the proper circumstances seems to indicate that he wouldn’t agree with relaxing regulations on businesses, but hell, he still doesn’t know the other man’s name. Enjolras isn’t even sure that they attend the same school.

Does he attend high school at all?

Enjolras had indicated that he himself is seventeen, but Romeo and Juliet laws exist, and some people have little regard for even those. It wouldn’t be unheard of for someone who has already graduated to return for a party, especially an alum of the football team hoping to relive their former glory days.

That settles it: when his conversation partner returns, before they continue delving down the rabbithole of inherent good versus evil, he will get a name and an age. 

And maybe a phone number, too.

The door creaks open behind him, and Enjolras turns expectantly only to find Courfeyrac. He ignores the twinge of disappointment that resounds in his stomach.

“Enj! We’ve been looking everywhere for you!” his friend whisper-shouts unnecessarily across the room. “C’mon, it’s nearly curfew. Ferre’s already in the van.”

Enjolras’s eyes flicker between Courfeyrac and the door. It hasn’t been nearly long enough to reasonably expect his conversation partner to be back yet, and a quick glance at his phone verifies that they are already drawing precariously close to Combeferre’s (and, while they’re ostensibly at his parents’ house, their) curfew. 

Enjolras probably won’t see his mystery man again after tonight, so there’s really no reason to worry over hurt feelings. He seemed sober enough, but there’s a decent chance that come tomorrow morning he won’t even remember the conversation. In fact, he might have forgotten Enjolras the moment he stepped out for drinks.

It was a nice night: no need to ruin it with expectations.

“All right, let’s go.”

—-

Mystery man _is_ in high school, and his eyes are brown.

A deep, rich brown, to be precise, one that warms his whole face and brings out the undertones in his hair; there are no speckles of other colors, only a slightly darker ring along the outside edge of his irises to indicate that the color ends there.

Unfortunately, Enjolras is so stuck on this detail that he doesn’t register role-call at all until he hears an all too familiar but decidedly incorrect name. “Actually,” he interjects, more for the teacher than his peers of over a decade, “I usually go by Enjolras.”

“Enjolras,” the teacher repeats with a smile, writing something down on her clipboard. “And that’s he/him, I presume?”

The nervousness that used to take hold of him with every new class has more or less passed after years of this. His eighteenth birthday can’t come soon enough. “Right.” 

Attendance continues without event, and though Enjolras does try harder to pay attention, evidently he’s already missed Mystery Man’s introduction. The rest of the class feels redundant after four periods of virtually identical rules, a re-review of the Code of Conduct, and a page-by-page examination of the class syllabus and expectations for the year. Despite attempts to focus on the subject at hand, Enjolras finds himself falling prey to anxiety about classmate just three rows and two seats over from him, all of his fears from last Friday returning with force.

What if the man doesn’t want to talk to him? After all, Enjolras had abandoned him without so much as a goodbye. Maybe he’s even angry, or embarrassed. What if he doesn’t remember Enjolras at all? 

He can’t decide if this is a best- or worst-case scenario, and before he can come to a determination the bell indicating the end of the period is already ringing. Slinging his backpack over his shoulder, Enjolras exits the class and starts toward the cafeteria. 

“Hey,” comes a familiar voice from behind him. He turns just in time to see Mystery Man pull up beside him, leaning over so he’s at eye-level with Enjolras with his hands dug deep in his pockets. 

“Oh.” Attempts to brainstorm responses for a situation like this had been fruitless and resulted in hopes that he wouldn’t be put into this exact situation. “Hi.”

“Pretty rude of you to leave me like that, Cinderella.” The words are said without malice, though there’s an edge of hurt to them. “I even found water-based ice, just for you and your filtered tap water.” 

Guilty, Enjolras stops to properly face the other student. “My friends came, and we had to get home for curfew.”

“Oh jeez, _curfew,_ you really are a goody seventeen-shoes.” The hesitation that had been there has relaxed, and Enjolras bites the inside of his mouth as the man’s grin extends to its full width. Standing upright, he continues. “I do believe I still owe you an explanation on Kant in the context of The Good Place.”

Enjolras’s mouth opens and closes, face flushing. “You have lunch this period?”

“No, but how important can the first day of chem be?” The man receives a deadpan for his efforts, and he amends his statement. “Fine. You free afterschool?”

Mondays and Thursday are marching band rehearsal. And Fridays. And all day Saturdays. Some Wednesdays. The occasional Tuesday. “Not really.”

“Cool, me neither. Maybe we’ll run into one another after, then?”

Enjolras is dubious, but the other man’s insistence fills him with tentative optimism. “Maybe. Before school might work better, though.”

“Afraid I’m not especially accessible then either.” Overhead the warning bell rings. “Whoop, that’s me. We’ll figure something out though, yeah?” his classmate calls, already starting down the hall.

“Sure,” Enjolras responds. Resuming his trajectory toward the cafeteria, he halts suddenly in his tracks. “Wait, what’s your name?”

The halls are noisy enough that Enjolras almost misses the answer when it finally comes over a shoulder, accompanied by a laugh:

“It’s R!”

Following two weeks of all-day practices in the hot summer sun, the three-hour evening rehearsal feels almost easy. He doesn’t need sunscreen, and because the football team’s practice times coincide almost perfectly with theirs they don’t even need to be on constant alert for the same sorts of immature antics that they did when there was much more unstructured time available.

Even so, it doesn’t stop Enjolras from double-checking the instrument locker room and doing a quick sweep of the trailers where the pit equipment and uniforms are stored.

“And what is The Infamous Enjolras up to this evening?”

Managing to minimize his heart attack to a mere jerk toward the sound, Enjolras glares at the shadow. “What are you doing here so late?”

“Could ask you the same,” R answers easily.

Sighing, he steps away from the trailers, moving toward where he’s left his bags in a heap on the ground. “Just checking to make sure we haven’t made our equipment an easy target.”

R’s tone spells amusement as he pivots, still facing Enjolras as the latter gathers up his things. “Are people so eager to steal decade-old tubas?”

“The tubas are inside,” Enjolras informs him, “and no, I—” He hesitates, unsure if he should be sharing this with someone he feels inclined toward impressing. R’s expression is expectant, though, and really if R finds Enjolras’s extracurricular activities offputting he probably shouldn’t be concerned with the impression he’s making anyhow. “I may have made some waves, and not all of the waves were necessarily well-received.”

“Can’t even imagine.”

Relief breaks in his chest as he heaves the final bag over his shoulder, grinning as he gives R a proper look in the dim light of the parking lot. “You showered.”

“It’s been a long day.”

Not at all untrue. If Enjolras could, he’d probably do the same. As is, however, his house is only a twenty-minute walk away, so he can manage. “Is your ride running late?”

“Right on time,” he says, picking up a foot to smack the sole of his shoe. “I live in the neighborhood just across the street.”

“Is that so?” Enjolras asks, eyebrows raising as they begin their walk toward the front of the school. “I’ve never seen you around before—I live there too.” 

R’s hands lock behind his head as he walks, apparently bag-free. “My pops and I just moved in toward the end of last year, and I’ve kept pretty busy since.”

“Huh. Small world.”

“Small world,” R agrees. “Wanna go together? Since we’re headed in the same direction.”

He tries to ignore the trill that runs through his stomach. “May as well. I do believe I’m waiting on an explanation, after all.”

“To be fair, I am too.” At R’s words, Enjolras shoots a questioning glance at his classmate. “What exactly has a goody seventeen-shoes such as yourself done to piss off your higher-ups?”

A tired sigh escapes Enjolras, though this time there’s none of the nervousness that had appeared before. “Not my higher-ups, per se. The entire football team, though, and certainly some members of the administration.”

“Oh?” The curiosity in R’s voice is palpable. “Do tell.”

Switching his trumpet to his other hand, Enjolras gives a huff. “I do want to preface this by saying that none of this is intended as an attack on the people who play football, only the people who insist on perpetuating and encouraging not only the culture of toxic masculinity that surrounds it but also the very institution of pressuring people into sacrificing their health and wellbeing for a violent pastime with well-known and -documented medical repercussions.”

“I see.”

“As it would turn out, people aren’t a fan of that.”

“I don’t imagine they would be.”

“But it doesn’t make sense!” Enjolras continues. “I get that they don’t want their opportunity to play reduced, but the school doesn’t have to cut the sport entirely to reallocate funding to other worthwhile endeavors—supplies for teachers, arts programs—”

“Marching band?” R guesses.

“We consistently place in the top five in regional competitions, yet our funding has steadily decreased for the past decade.” His brows furrow. “I’m not saying all funding should be funnelled to us, but the only item on the school budget that has continually increased every year has been athletics, most specifically the one with the highest rate of injury.”

“Also the highest source of revenue, publicity, and scholarships.”

“Schools aren’t a business,” he argues.

“Yeah, tell that to Wellington.” R doesn’t need to elaborate: Wellington Area School District is notoriously poor, residing in an area of the city with extremely low property values that only continue to drop as people move to wealthier school districts.

“Public schools shouldn’t be funded by property taxes anyway.”

“Yet they are. And in the meantime, if they can’t get good test scores, maintaining successful sports teams with the means by which to attain scholarships to quality institutions post-graduation is a decent second-place.”

“Our school doesn’t have that problem.”

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Enjolras huffs again, swinging his trumpet case back to his left hand.

“Not saying it’s right,” R adds gently, “only that it is the way it is.”

“But it doesn’t have to be,” Enjolras insists. “People are just satisfied with the status quo.”

“Some people don’t have the privilege to fight that.”

The conversation is beginning to take a defensive edge, and Enjolras decides to back off before he alienates his new friend altogether by starting an actual fight. “So, now you know what I’ve done to make the football team hate me and my friends: what has Kant done to personally offend you?”

—-

Tuesday Enjolras doesn’t see R outside of class, nor do they cross paths Wednesday before or after school. By the time Thursday and the end of band rehearsal roll around, he doesn’t have high hopes, but there R stands exactly where he’d found Enjolras Monday, freshly showered with a duffle hanging from one shoulder.

When Enjolras sees R, the man is already examining the trailers; the uniform trailer is fully coated in lumpy plastic wrap, and the trailer for the pit equipment is coated in discolored toilet paper and eggshells. “Dare I ask?”

“Football team,” he sighs, hoisting up his bags. “Not all of them, I suspect, probably just the usual handful.”

“I see,” R nods. “What’re you gonna do about it?”

Shrugging, he picks up his trumpet case. “Well, the first game’s tomorrow, so a couple of sections volunteered to get here early to help clean so the band moms don’t need to worry about it.” They’d tried to cut off the plastic wrap today, only to find that the sun had fused the layers together, sealing in and crushing what were apparently carefully-deposited rotten eggs to form a disgusting outer shell.

“Noble, but I meant, what are you all going to do to get back at the football team?”

“Hm? Oh, no idea, I’m not involved with that. I think there’s a group of rogue band kids who occasionally try to prank the football players back, but generally we just try to encourage everyone to rise above it.” Glancing back at the pit trailer, he shakes his head. “Might have gotten drumline involved in this one, though, which is never a good idea. Nor is messing with our band moms.”

R stares blankly at him, and Enjolras remembers that not everyone automatically understands the implications of each section.

“Our band moms are literally moms who volunteer to help,” he explains as they begin walking, “so everyone’s pretty protective of them. Drumline is…have you ever seen Mad Max?”

“The cinematic masterpiece of our time? Of course.”

“They’re like that. The band’s wild card.” 

They walk in silence for long enough that Enjolras is nervous that he’s said something wrong until R speaks again. “So the football team should be worried?”

He shrugs. “Hard to say with them. They usually get stoned, do their job, and mind their own business, but when they set their minds to something the sky’s the limit.”

The next statement is slow and deliberate. “But you don’t condone it.”

His words are chosen carefully. “I don’t condone it,” he affirms, “but sometimes the football team does go too far, and I have a hard time condemning the natural consequences of their actions. Especially when they target the whole band for what my friends and I say.” R hums in response, but his attention seems far away. “So. Have you been keeping up with primaries?”

Whatever trance R may have been in, the question seems to break it. “Oh, you still believe in the illusion of the democratic republic?”

—-

The next day, Enjolras sets out for school a full two hours earlier than usual: even if he weren’t drum major he would be there to help with the clean-up, but especially since the other drum major has to take the bus to school every day it’s essential that he’s there to set an example for the rest of the band.

Doesn’t mean that walking to school at 5:30 in the morning doesn’t _suck._

Surprise strikes in its hazy morning way when he sees a familiar figure already walking up ahead, backpack slung lazily across his shoulder and duffle dangling precariously at his side.

“R?” The figure turns abruptly, confirming Enjolras’s suspicions. “What’re you doing out so early?”

Before he can answer, the man yawns, shoulders rolling dangerously far back but bags remaining firmly in-place. “Gym.”

Furrowing his brow, Enjolras squints at the man. “The school gym?”

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t that basically reserved for the student athletes right now?”

R’s hands tuck into the pockets of his basketball shorts as he shrugs. “It’s not all that bad.”

Enjolras raises a speculative eyebrow but doesn’t say anything: before 7AM, the world is meant to be quiet.

They walk in respectful silence as they make their way to the school, R peeling off at the front doors with a mute wave. Enjolras nods his response before heading back around the school to the ruin of their trailers. Three other band kids are already standing around, apparently awaiting instruction, and Enjolras drops his bags around him with a sigh before stepping forward.

“All right Comrades, here’s what we’re going to do.”

Before the morning is over they are joined by fifteen others, and the job is complete with only four people needing to take a shower before class.

(To be fair, two already needed one.)

The periods pass quickly, a flurry of red and black as the cheerleaders and football players parade around in their uniforms with all of the pride of athletes playing their first home game of the season. Enjolras sees that some sections from the marching band have made up t-shirts to wear for the occasion—some (the flutes) more appropriate than others (the trombones, who he notes by band third period have all been asked to turn theirs inside-out).

His AP English class is blessedly devoid of school spirit, and he feels himself relax as he settles into his seat. There’s still two more minutes before the lesson starts, and he takes advantage of the time to rest his head on his desk and close his eyes.

The reprieve is short-lived: a cacophony of voices follows one peer into the room, and after a minute of the noise Enjolras exhales sharply through his nose, picking up his head to glare at whoever has broken the class’s peace.

 _Ah, so there_ is _a football player in this class._ Despite having attended school with the same peers most of his life, summer changes people, and it’s hard to identify the stranger in the red jersey from behind. When he squints at the name across the shoulders, though, he finds that it’s still mostly unfamiliar to him. Sure, he’s heard of ‘Grantaire’ around school and among the band kids who actually keep up with their football team—the hotshot new kicker who got varsity on his first try. Enjolras understands most of those words. He hadn’t realized that he was at all familiar with the person who they represented, though.

“Everyone, if we can please find our seats and settle? Gentlemen, I know most of you do not belong to this class, if you could please—”

A grumbling and reluctant exodus occurs as the pre-class volume reduces to a dull roar. Enjolras keeps his eyes on the football player, eager to see who among the AP ranks has achieved athletic success and earned Enjolras’s disdain for the next ten minutes. 

With the last of the football player’s friends filing out, he finally turns to reveal— 

_R?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Quand les pauvres n'auront plus rien à manger, ils mangeront les riches_ \- "When the poor are left with nothing else to eat, they will eat the rich."
> 
> It isn't uncommon for football teams to practice every day after school and work out every morning together. They also practice a lot of the summer, though not normally for as long as the marching band during band camp.


	2. September

They’ve been doing this for almost a month now: Grantaire will wait until marching band practice is over to walk home with Enjolras, Enjolras will invent excuses to stay until football practice is over on marching band off-days; sometimes Enjolras even has an excuse to come in early, and he and Grantaire will make the trek to school in comfortable quiet. 

To say that Enjolras is surprised when the question finally comes would be untrue, but it’s certainly not a conversation he’s been eager to have.

“Go out with me.” Grantaire says it with enviable ease, like he isn’t proposing the most preposterous arrangement ever. ‘Go out with me,’ like it’s that simple.

“No.”

“Why not?”

Sighing, Enjolras braces himself for what he knows is about to become a very arduous conversation. If he tells Grantaire it’s because he doesn’t want to, he knows that the man will drop it with no further questions, but the fact is that it would be a lie, so he must proceed with caution. “Because it’d be complicated, and we shouldn’t.”

“I can do complicated,” Grantaire informs him. “I’ll have you know I taught myself how to conjugate pluperfect tenses in Latin yesterday. I mean, it was during math class, but—”

“But I don’t want ‘complicated.’” 

Grantaire’s head cocks, a look of genuine puzzlement pinching his features that makes Enjolras’s heart leap in his chest. “Why not?”

“Because—” Biting the inside of his mouth, he meets Grantaire’s eyes. “You’ve seen the hell Bahorel catches just for being friends with us, and that’s on both sides of the fence.”

“You’re worried about the football players harassing you?”

“No.”

“The marching banders, then.”

 _“No,”_ repeats Enjolras more firmly. “I don’t want you getting caught up in this.”

“We’re not even dating, and you’re already trying to make my decisions for me?” Grantaire tuts. They come to a stop. “Give me a real reason. A _you_ reason.”

His eyes avert toward the house beside them to avoid Grantaire’s earnest expression. “It’s a bad idea.”

“Because you think my friends will bully me.”

“Because I _know_ they will. Do they even know you’re bi?”

“Yeah? It’s 2019, it’s chill. Let me worry about me.” Grantaire’s hand reaches out, thumb brushing gently against Enjolras’s cheek, and whatever Enjolras had been prepared to say entirely abandons him. “Go out with me.”

Enjolras’s lips press together before he speaks. “I’m not agreeing to anything that I know will paint a target on your back.”

“Then you _do_ want to date me.” A note of satisfaction creeps into the kicker’s voice, and it occurs to Enjolras that the man’s confidence may have belied doubt. Now, though, Grantaire has that look in his eye that he gets when he makes up his mind to convince Enjolras of something, and his mouth is already opening to continue.

“I’m not dropping my campaign,” Enjolras tells him firmly. 

A smug raise of the shoulders comes in response. “And I’m not dropping football.”

“So we’re at an impasse,” Enjolras declares. An impasse means that he’s gaining the upper hand, and if he can get Grantaire to agree— 

“You could hide me.”

The response comes so nonchalantly that Enjolras isn’t sure he’s heard correctly. _“What?”_

Shrugging, Grantaire repeats exactly what Enjolras thought he’d heard before: “Hide me. This. Us.” His hands tuck into his pockets as he kicks awkwardly at the ground between them. “I want to be with you, you want to be with me: seems simple enough to me, but if you're really that worried about what everyone else thinks—”

“I don’t.” The admission makes his cheeks burn, but it's true. “I’m not.”

It must be the reaction Grantaire was going for, because his grin grows. “Then date me.”

Enjolras’s lower lip works between his teeth before he finally responds. “No.”

“Why not?” 

This is becoming infuriatingly redundant. “Because it’s not a healthy foundation for a relationship!”

“Neither is arguing for thirty minutes over Kant the first time two people meet, at a party one of them snuck into.” 

This time Enjolras’s lips are pressed together in embarrassment. “Well that’s—”

“I want to do it.”

“We wouldn’t even be able to come out after our seasons are over,” Enjolras continues. “Not unless you more or less immediately cut contact with everyone on the team.”

“All I’m hearing is that you see a future with me in it,” teases Grantaire, eyebrows waggling.

“I—” The longer he speaks, the more difficult he’s making this. “Fine.”

Despite his persistence, the kicker looks almost surprised. “‘Fine’?”

“Fine,” Enjolras repeats.

Wary, Grantaire clarifies, “You’ll do it?” 

“You don’t seem to leave me much choice.” The words are cold, but Enjolras has to tamp down the smile rising from his chest. 

It’s a fight he loses when he meets Grantaire’s eyes—gorgeous brown eyes that now have a self-satisfied gleam to them.

 _His_ boyfriend’s _eyes._

Grantaire smiles back at him even harder, and when their hands brush and Grantaire takes Enjolras’s in his the background chatter reminding him of all of the reasons that this is a terrible idea grows a bit quieter.


	3. December

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Conditioning_ \- after sports seasons officially end, they usually continue exercising together in preparation for next year's season  
>  _[Talent] scouts_ \- as athletes' times at high school/university draw to an end, talent scouts will begin coming to the games and practices of promising players or schools that normally have a lot of good players to pick out players who they want on their team. If they decide that they want you, they'll usually contact you with scholarship offers to convince you to attend their school (smart bargainers can pit school scholarship offers against one another; a full-ride athletic scholarship is not even remotely unheard-of) 
> 
> **CW:** f-slur (summary in end notes; occurs after Matt and T-Bone appear)

_I’d like it if we could, is all._

Grantaire’s words bounce around his head over and over. Today is the first time in two weeks that his boyfriend has been allowed to walk unassisted since his injury at nationals _(‘kickers never get injured’ his_ ass), and their walks to and from school had been sorely missed.

Enjolras had helped Grantaire to his door, partly because he’s a gentleman and partly because at long last he'd had an excuse to walk his boyfriend all the way home with enough plausible deniability to not risk compromising their relationship. 

_Hey,_ Grantaire had said, nodding upward. Following the look, Enjolras’s eyes drifted to the sprig of mistletoe. _No pressure, but…_

A normal person might have found it cute, or romantic, or any number of things. Enjolras, being who he is, promptly launched into a flustered rant about antiquated traditions and consent until Grantaire interrupted him with a chuckle and a soft thumb against his cheek. _Not today then._

He hadn’t even realized what a tizzy he’d worked himself into over it unless his stomach unclenched suddenly at the words.

_It’d make me happy if you attended the Winter Gala with me._

Winter Gala. Enjolras has made it seventeen and a half years without going to any school-sponsored dances, and he’s never once regretted it. They’d decided before Grantaire’s injury that they wouldn’t exchange presents, but— 

_I’d like it if we could, is all._

It’s not like they could be seen together. Grantaire knows this, and Enjolras told him as much. No cheesy pictures at the photo ops, no dancing, no monopolizing a table with punch and snacks…

_I’d like it if we could, is all._

The more Enjolras thinks about it, though, the more he finds that he desperately wants it: he wants to meet Grantaire’s eye across the dancefloor, wants to have a secret rendez-vous at the punchbowl where they don’t say anything but both _know._ Wants to go out with his boyfriend somewhere beyond the space between the back parking lot of the school and the front door of his house.

_I’d like it if we could, is all._

**[21.36] You:** ok  
**[21.36] You:** ill go

—-

It’s not quite so awkward as Enjolras had feared when he arrives: no one rubs it in his face that, in over three years of high school, he has never before attended a dance. Likewise, he finds that there are actually people besides Grantaire in attendance whom he enjoys being around: Courfeyrac and Combeferre aside, he guesses at least a quarter of the marching band must be here. Their season had ended early November, and their banquet had been at the end of the month, so it’s nice to see them again.

This is what he decides to blame for his utter lack of preparation when he finally sees Grantaire.

It’s not that he didn’t know that his boyfriend is handsome—being demi doesn’t mean he’s _blind_ —but it’s quite another thing to see him with his hair styled, makeup applied, and in a _suit._ Enjolras had suggested before that Grantaire find a stand-in date to avoid suspicion, and he has never been more glad to have had an idea so promptly shot down: the jealousy alone might have killed him.

It’s a good fifteen minutes before Enjolras risks making eye-contact with his boyfriend. The connection is electric, immediately bringing a smile to his face, and Grantaire nods toward the dancefloor with a raised eyebrow. 

They’d discussed this too, dancing together without _being_ together. Enjolras finds a crowd of band kids to inconspicuously join on the dancefloor, only remembering far too late that dancing with Grantaire was less of an _I don’t want to_ and more of an _I am physically incapable of doing more with a beat than indicating it to others._

His boyfriend is already across the room with his friends, laughing and generally goofing around with a few shimmies and the occasional hip roll thrown in, all of which only serves to make Enjolras feel more incompetent and flustered. 

Giving up, he heads over to the punch bowl, taking a preliminary taste before filling it up the rest of the way, satisfied in the knowledge that it has not yet been spiked. Under a minute later he is joined by none other than Grantaire, who appears entirely absorbed in the process of retrieving his drink as he speaks in a low tone.

“Wanna head outside?”

Not particularly: it’s December. “Why?”

Perhaps if he could look at Grantaire’s face he would have been more prepared for his answer. “You’re adorable, and I want a picture.”

As is, he chokes inelegantly on his punch. “Oh. Well then.”

“We could find somewhere indoors, if you’d rather.”

It’s entirely too risky, but the opportunity to have a picture of Grantaire like this—of them _together_ — proves too much to resist. “We could always try the back lobby?” It’s not as far out of the way as he should probably suggest, but their absences need to be brief enough not to cause alarm.

“The one around the corner from the bathrooms?”

“It’d be a good cover,” Enjolras rationalizes, but Grantaire is already nodding.

“I’ll meet you out there in five.”

With that the kicker disappears, raising his cup to his peers as Enjolras tries to stop himself from watching, a secretive grin creeping across his face. His friends are seated at a table and poring over a large selection of snacks, and Enjolras informs them that he is heading to the bathroom to freshen up. Courfeyrac nods without looking, and Combeferre offers to come along.

“No need, just didn’t want you to worry.”

Downing his punch, he leaves the flimsy plastic cup with his friends before making his exit, checking quickly that there are no witnesses before continuing past the bathrooms.

As promised, Grantaire appears within a few minutes looking slightly more rumpled than when Enjolras had last seen him.

“Our song came on,” the kicker explains.

Enjolras frowns: they don’t have a song.

“The team,” Grantaire elaborates. “Just something we listened to on the way to games.”

“Ah.” Guilt begins edging its way into his consciousness. It’s just another one of those things that their situation forces them to neglect: Enjolras knows almost nothing about Grantaire’s friends or the extracurricular that absorbs almost all of his time.

Well, absorbed. 

“I guess with you recovered and the season over we can finally start walking to school together, huh?” Uncrossing his arms, he steps forward to close the berth between them.

Grantaire’s lips purse. “Actually, I’m probably gonna keep going to the gym in the morning. Y’know, keep up with everyone, maintain _them gains.”_ Posing his arms to flex, Grantaire shoots him a goofy wink.

Enjolras frowns. None of the other seniors have kept going since the season ended, only the players who will be here next year. Still, Grantaire is right: most of his friends are on the football team, regardless of Enjolras’s feelings on that, and it’s not for him to tell his boyfriend who he can and can’t hang out with on his own time. Nevertheless— “Will that be all right? With your leg?”

“Angel,” groans Grantaire, wrapping his arms around Enjolras. “The doctor said I’m fine. It was a sprain.”

“You tore your ligament.”

“A bad sprain,” he amends. “I’ll take it easy on leg days and cardio. We’re supposed to be taking pictures, not worrying about me.”

“Fine, fine,” Enjolras laughs, pushing out of the hug. He’s reluctant to drop the subject, but with Grantaire’s final season of competitive football over and done with there’s little good that lecturing him on the dangers of the sport to his health will do now. “How do you want to go about this?”

They decide on Enjolras’s phone because it has a better camera. He need not have worried over awkward, stilted posing: for the first time ever, they’re able to sit on the floor together and lean into one another and even _cuddle,_ and with his 64 megapixel camera they capture every moment of it.

After ten minutes of this, Enjolras sighs. “They’re gonna miss us soon.”

“Reminder that they don’t have to.” It’s been three months, and though Grantaire rarely complains, their situation does remain an unspoken point of contention.

Enjolras chooses to ignore the comment, standing and offering a hand to help his boyfriend to his feet. Grantaire wraps him in another hug, and this time Enjolras lets him, nuzzling his face into his boyfriend’s shoulder. They pull away slightly, just enough for Enjolras to go up on tip-toe to brush a brief kiss against Grantaire’s lips and appreciate the way it stuns him into flushed speechlessness before—

“Maybe he’s over here?”

Heart racing, Enjolras pushes Grantaire away just in time for two members of the football team to appear from around the corner.

“This guy giving you a problem, R?” asks Matt, a sturdy man Enjolras hasn’t had class with since third grade.

“No, we just—” Enjolras starts, but he’s cut off with a shove.

“Haven’t you caused enough trouble around here?” the more gangly one asks. Enjolras is fairly certain his name begins with a T, but beyond that has been lost to the years.

Apparently enough time as passed for Grantaire to have recovered. “Hey, it’s cool, I’ve got this under control. Angelface here just got lost, is all.”

And yes, it was Enjolras’s idea for Grantaire to continue acting like he normally does with the football team, but it’s unnerving to hear the usually-teasing voice turn callous toward him. 

“Football team’s budget increased again,” T informs him, smug. 

It’d be unsurprising even if he didn’t already know. “Congratulations.”

“No thanks to you.”

There’s no point in explaining that this was never some campaign personally against the players on the team.

Matt cracks his knuckles casually. “What was one fag going to do anyway?”

The air freezes between them, and from behind Enjolras he hears Grantaire give a fully disappointed, _“Dude.”_

All of the menace drops from Matt’s posturing, leaving the man looking genuinely confused. “What?”

“You can't just misgender someone or call them a fag because you don't like them,” the kicker explains.

“But…” T trails, “he is a fag.”

“Bruh, I'm queer too.”

“But you're cool,” Matt argues.

“Dude, no: when you use my sexuality as an insult it's still hurtful to me, cuz you're demonizing it and saying it's only conditionally okay to be queer. It's the same as if I start making fun of things about you that are out of your control, you feel? If I say that red hair is ugly, that's not just insulting to you, that’s insulting to your parents and your sister too because they also have red hair.”

Enjolras blinks at the moment unfurling before him: it’s not that he’d previously assumed that the football players were intentionally insensitive, but hearing Grantaire explain the concepts and seeing T and Matt nodding along and asking clarifying questions was not something he was prepared for when he got dressed to come out tonight.

“What the hell’s going on out here?” a third voice comes, and this time Enjolras recognizes it. 

“Balto!” yelps T—an understandable reaction when Bahorel stands nearly a head taller than all of them. 

“Angelface got lost,” Matt explains unconvincingly.

“Looks like you all did too,” growls Bahorel, eyeing the football players. “You all wanna see if you can find your way back to the dance like everyone else?”

Scrambling at the out, Matt and T waste no time hurrying away. Bahorel gives a long measured look over Enjolras’s head, and a beat later Grantaire follows the others.

“You okay?”

Enjolras’s brain is still catching up with the events. “Could have gone without the homophobia, but otherwise good. Didn’t really expect them to listen to R.”

A paw reaches over to pat Enjolras’s shoulder as Bahorel leads them back to the cafeteria. “They’re generally good kids, just a bit uninformed,” he explains. “You gotta remember that your activism sometimes threatens the livelihoods of the same people you’re trying to help. Those three especially: they’re only going to college because they got full-rides. Pretty sure T-bone was basically resigned to this being his last season before then.”

Three? “Not R,” Enjolras hears himself saying before he can exercise any self-control.

Bahorel frowns. “Not _just_ him, no, but R is a damned good kicker. He played a hell of a season, and scouts were contacting him like crazy all season with scholarship offers. A couple gave him full-rides, I think he settled for Brown?”

His head is buzzing: Grantaire has never mentioned any of this to him before. “Brown University. Like the Ivy League?”

Bahorel’s mouth goes firm. “I know you’re not a huge fan of most of the players, but R is smart as they get: if anyone deserves to go to Brown, it’s him.”

“I wasn’t—” Stopping himself, Enjolras takes a moment to organize his thoughts. “Thanks. I really appreciate you helping me back there.”

Just like that, Bahorel’s grin is back. “Any time. Like I said, they’re mostly good guys, but you definitely hit a nerve with some of them, so be careful, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Enjolras agrees weakly. “I’m just gonna,” he nods his head toward the washroom.

“Sure, go ahead. Want me to wait?”

“Nah,” he responds with a shake of his head. “Just need a minute to myself.”

“Gotcha. Take care, Dude.”

In the bathroom he splashes water over his face, taking inventory. He’s definitely put more effort into watching the games this year and trying to understand what Grantaire’s role was in the context of the rest of the sport, but…he did his job? He kicked the ball, it went between the goalposts. It doesn’t seem like too difficult a role to fill.

Evidently their school is spoiled in that way, and other kickers don’t do the job so well. Grantaire is only barely recovered from his last injury, though, and— 

_And he lied to me._

The continued morning conditioning, the pointed hints about technical school, the very intentional omission of the fact that the rest of his career is apparently going to be built around the very pastime Enjolras is fighting so hard to reduce the glorification of? Does Grantaire truly think so little of Enjolras’s work, _of himself,_ to continue doing this? 

And then to _lie_ about it.

**[21.26] You:** meet me outside

A thumbs-up emoji has arrived by the time Enjolras finishes drying his face, and he tosses the paper towel in the bin on his way out.

In the middle of the parking lot Enjolras can already see Grantaire: he must have left when he received the message. 

As soon as the kicker catches sight of Enjolras, he begins speaking: “I wasn’t gonna let them do anything, so you know. I know you’re all for method-acting, but I draw the line there.”

A quiet voice in the back of his head indicates that he did know this, it’s one of the reasons he’s dating this man in the first place, but the thoughts in the forefront of his brain overshadow the sentiment. “Brown?”

Grantaire’s eyes widen briefly before his features return to carefully blank composition. “Bahorel?”

“Would have been better to hear from you.”

Sighing, Grantaire untucks his hands from his pockets. “And tell you what? That my future is built on the back of everything you stand against?”

“We could have at least talked about it.”

“And said what, Enjolras? We both know that this is the only way I can afford to go to college on a construction worker’s salary, and it’s definitely the only way I can study anything I’m actually interested in: my dad’s not cosigning loans for a degree in _philosophy.”_

An exasperated sound escapes him. “You’re smart, you could get in on academic scholar—”

“Into _Brown?”_ Grantaire scoffs. “I’m not getting into an Ivy League on academic merit alone, Sunshine. I barely stayed on the team this term, my math grades were so low. I won’t be able to cut it in college without that academic bump.”

“‘Academ’—what are you _talking_ about?”

“The academic bump?” his boyfriend repeats slowly. “Student athletes need above a 79 across the board to stay in sports, so most teachers look the other way if a paper gets turned in late or some answers on a test aren’t as correct as they should be. The academic bump!”

“You’re in AP English!”

“Because I _like_ English, I can motivate myself to do it. College isn’t just classes I’ll like: it’s work, and I don’t know how to do that!”

Enjolras shakes his head. This isn’t the direction he’d anticipated this conversation going. “Look, we can find you a tutor, you don’t have to do this. I mean, I can help you with math, if that’s really—”

“Oh, is that so? And when exactly would we schedule that, Mr ‘We Can’t Be Seen Together’?” Grantaire’s hands find his pockets again. “Look, I’m in. The paperwork’s already finished, and here’s the thing: I don’t mind football. If it gets me by, if it lets me do the things I want to do, what’s the issue? Not all of us were born with a trust fund. Some of us do what we have to to get by.”

The defeatism is back in Grantaire’s voice, and it drives a spike of anger hot into Enjolras’s chest. “So what, you’re just going to keep riding on football’s back to avoid real life? What happens if you get an offer from a pro team when you graduate, what then? Will you accept that too?”

Grantaire’s expression sets, obstinate. “Maybe I will,” he shrugs. “Money is money.”

“And you’ll let it destroy you, continue breaking down your body and mind, because the short-term benefit is appealing?”

A huff comes from Grantaire that seems to deflate him entirely. “Not much different from what I’m doing already.”

Enjolras blinks. “With football?”

“With _us,_ Enjolras.” The black bowtie at Grantaire’s neck is tugged undone as he walks toward, then past, Enjolras to return to the school. Enjolras is left to watch his boyfriend—his brilliant, witty, talented boyfriend—disappear back into the building as flakes begin their slow descent around him.

Try as he might to keep his spirits up, his best friends seem to notice in short time that he is no longer enjoying himself and offer to take him home. He suspects that Bahorel passed on the events of the lobby, and Enjolras can’t decide if it’s a blessing or a curse that Combeferre and Courfeyrac decline to ask about it.

Once he’s alone in his room and changed out of his suit, he lays himself out over his bed to stare at the ceiling.

Grantaire has already gotten into Brown. He should be _happy_ for his boyfriend: they’d barely discussed if the kicker was interested in higher education, much less top choices, but it certainly sounds like he’d had a lot of options.

His hair brushes over his forehead as he shakes his head at himself. Why had he reacted that way? Yes, his campaign is important to him, but so is Grantaire’s future happiness. So is Grantaire. 

And at its core, isn’t that what his stance against football as an institution is meant to be about? Not about the principle, but about the welfare of those playing? Who is he to denounce Grantaire’s decisions, decisions that affect no one but himself, simply because they don’t align with Enjolras’s vision for the world? Come next August they might not even be together anymore.

He’s not even sure they’re together now.

Grantaire hadn’t said as much, true, but he’d be well-within his rights to break up with Enjolras after such a stunt. Trying to control his boyfriend’s future, what was he thinking? It’s no wonder he hadn’t been told earlier. Football is such a large component of Grantaire’s life, too—not just the game, but his teammates and the relationships he’s been building since moving to the district. For all that Enjolras thought he knew Grantaire, there’s so much he’s neglected.

Twisting toward his nightstand, he none-too-delicately unplugs his phone, scrolling through the pictures from tonight. 64 megapixels or no, many of them are terrible: too dark, angled strangely, focused incorrectly, blurry from movement. Once he sees that there are enough salvageable ones from their impromptu photoshoot, he deletes the rejects without abandon until only thirty-two of the original 118 remain.

There’s one photo he keeps coming back to, a shot where he’d been laughing as Grantaire pressed a kiss to his temple. Enjolras has never been particularly invested in his phone background or lockscreen, but looking at the picture he desperately wishes he could always have this image available, to show off to others and for quiet moments like this.

After a long beat of deliberation, he sends the remaining photos to Grantaire. Hopefully he hasn’t screwed things up beyond repair. 

To distract himself from waiting for a response that may or may not come, he sets to work considering the more meaningful angles he can begin addressing his campaign from: all this time his efforts have been targeted toward minimizing the focus on football within the school, but really his attention should have been on maximizing the support offered to the athletes themselves, both medically and academically.

Three notebook pages have already been filled with ideas before his phone vibrates. A stronger man might not have leapt across his bed for his phone at the notification: Enjolras would not know.

**[23.21] R:** cute <3

It’s a glimmer of hope, and Enjolras returns to his notebook with renewed energy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Summary:** After Matt and T-Bone appear, R has to put on a face and continue acting like he and Enjolras are not dating. T-Bone informs Enjolras that the football team's funding increased again, and Matt uses insensitive terms to further harrass Enjolras. R explains to Matt that that's a shitty thing to say and why, and Matt and T-Bone actually listen and ask for further explanation until Bahorel appears, takes in the situation, and tells the three football players to scram. You can begin reading again at "You okay?"
> 
> Note: I don't believe kickers are really super highly sought-after the way some other positions are, so accuracy falls a little short here. Ivy Leagues also do not have athletic scouts, nor do they really do merit-based scholarships so much as grants and other financial aid methods. (Thanks to kimuakiyo for bringing this point to my attention!)
> 
> Originally I wanted them to break up here, but I (like the Grinch) considered the merits of the holiday season, after which my heart grew three sizes and elected to end this chapter on a lighter note.


	4. June

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Quarterback_ \- one of the most important roles on the football team, usually a leadership position

_“Mamá,”_ groans Courfeyrac good-naturedly, “are you almost done?” 

The graduation ceremony had dragged on for a full three hours, but in truth Enjolras doesn’t mind the pageantry of the occasion nearly as much since they’ve moved outside and are able to stand and move around and talk. It’s especially bearable now that he isn’t distinctly aware of how far C and E are in the alphabet.

Still, Mrs. García-López is nothing if not thorough, and Enjolras wouldn’t strictly _mind_ a reprieve from holding his face in the same tight-cheeked expression for more than fifteen consecutive seconds.

“Just one more minute, _Conejo,”_ insists Courfeyrac’s mom. Behind her, Enjolras’s parents and Combeferre’s family converse with familiar ease, having already finished with all of the shots and arrangements that they wanted several minutes prior. Courfeyrac’s dad is nowhere to be found and must have excused himself and the rest of their clan when Enjolras wasn’t paying attention.

 _“There,”_ Mrs. García-López declares with a final click of her Canon. She turns back to the other parents. “Are we all posting our photos to the groupchat?”

“Already made the album,” Enjolras’s dad affirms with a wave of his phone.

“Great. I think…” Mrs. García-López peers around. “I think Jean left with the kids already, so we’d better get going.”

“Never a quiet moment when you have seven,” laughs Mrs. Combeferre. “Four was definitely enough for us.”

“Oh, it’s been getting quieter. I think with four out of the house in August things are going to slow down a lot.”

“Especially when one of them is this one,” adds Enjolras’s dad with a grin, jutting his chin in Courfeyrac’s direction.

“Oh, definitely.” Courfeyrac’s mom turns back to them. “We need to get moving: your brother’s ballet recital is in two hours, and we still haven’t eaten.”

“Okay _Mamá.”_ Spinning to face them, Courfeyrac throws his arms around Enjolras and Combeferre, an act of affection that, despite having been posed with their arms woven amongst one another in dozens of forms over the past twenty minutes, demands nothing less than full reciprocation.

“See you tomorrow?” verifies Enjolras.

“Of course,” responds Combeferre. “It’s my turn to pick the movie marathon.”

“And how could we possibly miss out on all of the Star Wars trilogies _again?”_ Courfeyrac teases.

“They are _classic,”_ Combeferre insists. “And you never know: I could make you watch Clone Wars this time.”

“In any case,” interjects Enjolras, “these are awfully big words from someone who’s been making us systematically work through every movie adaptation of Shakespeare’s work one week at a time.”

Courfeyrac scoffs. “It’s called _culture,_ Mr. ‘Oh, but the X-Men franchise is _timeless.’”_

“It is!”

“Yeah? Tell that to Dark Phoenix’s 23% Rotten Tomatoes rating.”

He has no defense against that, so Mrs. García-López’s timing is perfect: a slew of rapid Spanish apparently incenses Courfeyrac into action, pressing a quick kiss to Combeferre’s lips before he abandons them.

“My mother should be arriving at the house soon, so we’d better get going ourselves,” Mr. Combeferre explains to Enjolras’s parents.

One final hug is exchanged before Combeferre is paraded out by his parents and sisters, leaving the Enjolras alone with his parents.

“I don’t suppose we have a grandmother to be getting home to either?” Enjolras asks his parents dryly, exhaustion finally setting in.

 _“Mamé_ and _Papi_ aren’t getting in until tomorrow,” his mom smirks, “but I do believe that there is someone we’re supposed to be meeting here.”

A smile springs to Enjolras’s still-sore face. How could he have forgotten? “Right! He should be…” Repurposing a low brick wall into a perch, Enjolras scans over the crowd of graduates before his eyes alight on their mark. He climbs back down, diving into the chaos and trusting his parents to follow.

Impressively (or perhaps not-so-impressively, given the circumstances), the football team appears to have only taken a few minutes longer than Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac did on photos, and they’re disbanding as Enjolras fights his way toward where Grantaire is standing posed in his cap and gown with a grim smile beside a shorter, hard-looking man. Enjolras assumes that this is Grantaire’s father.

Mr. Grantaire looks like he never learned how to smile, like his hands were carved from coarse granite, and like his body-fat percentage is much lower than the average doctor would recommend. Fists clenched at his side, he looks vaguely uncomfortable beside Grantaire. Nevertheless, there is a watery sort of pride in his deep-set eyes as one of Grantaire’s friends takes their picture.

Enjolras waits patiently off to the side as Greg hands the phone back to Grantaire, who gives the screen a satisfied smile and his friend a hearty clap on the back. A moment later, Grantaire’s attention finally catches on Enjolras, and he makes an inaudible excuse before hurtling forward. Expecting a hug—and Grantaire gives the most phenomenal hugs, bone-breaking and consuming and perfect—Enjolras is surprised to instead have his wrist grabbed as they plunge back into the fray that his boyfriend had just escaped. Before he can process the sequence of events, he feels himself being pulled into a firm kiss.

“There!” Grantaire declares triumphantly, wrapping an arm around Enjolras’s waist. It’s then that Enjolras realizes where he has been dragged: the entire football team surrounds them.

In the months since the dance, Enjolras has shifted tactics completely, speaking out first and foremost about the inadequate support that the school provides their athletes and allowing the message to trickle down to the players. These days, Enjolras and the football team have an understanding, and his successor in the campaign—a senior snare drummer’s younger brother who’d managed a position as bass drum in eighth grade and has enough snark for the entire drumline—is already working closely with the quarterback for next year’s varsity team on developing a game plan for approaching the school administration for additional resources.

Still, Enjolras’s specific position with the seniors he’s been pulled up to is less of an alliance and more of a ceasefire, so he has no idea what to expect.

“Nice!” compliments a shiny-headed man whose name escapes Enjolras at the moment, high-fiving Grantaire.

“Thanks, Eagle.” That is Not the name he is trying to remember, but Grantaire is already turning back toward him. “See? Told you. Hey, Paris!”

Matt turns from his conversation with T-Bone. “Yeah?”

“Check out my _boyfriend,”_ Grantaire declares proudly, wrapping an arm around Enjolras.

Matt and T-Bone’s eyebrows furrow. “Uh. Queer Rights?” the former guesses, raising a fist in solidarity.

 _"Queer motherfucking Rights,”_ Grantaire agrees, leaning down to plant another kiss to Enjolras’s cheek before turning them around and leading them back toward where their parents had been so promptly abandoned. “See? 2020: no one cares.”

Enjolras blinks. “Wait, was that seriously your way of saying ‘I told you so’?”

“I’m also very excited to share my boyfriend with everyone.” Grantaire’s eyelashes flutter prettily before a wolfish grin resumes its place on his face. “But yes, it was.”

Their expedition is stalled by an overeager photographer, and Enjolras takes advantage of the lull. “‘Paris’?”

Grantaire’s eyebrows raise. “Yeah?”

“How do you get that from ‘Matt’?”

“Is that his name?” The man shrugs. “We mostly use nicknames. Eagle, Balto, Paris, T-Bone…they’re on our jerseys.”

Enjolras squints. “Not yours.”

“Well yeah, I didn’t have a nickname when I started.”

“And you do now?”

“Tragically, ‘R-istotle’ didn’t catch on the way I was hoping.” 

A small smirk rises to Enjolras’s face. “You’re more of a Diogenes anyhow.”

“I definitely don’t have enough respect for Plato to be his student.” He looks thoughtful for a moment. “The whole ‘not fucking your students’ thing does have its own appeal, though, and I’m sure having the ancient equivalent of The Rock as your teacher wouldn’t be all that bad. Y’know, so long as you ignored everything he said otherwise.”

The way clears again, and they find their parents soon after. 

“You must be Grantaire,” smiles Enjolras’s mom when he and his boyfriend finally arrive.

“We’ve heard a lot about you,” his dad tells Grantaire mischievously.

“Only good things,” Enjolras quickly assures the man beside him, who gives a nervous laugh in response.

There’s an expectant pause before Grantaire starts. “Oh, uh. This is Joao.” An outstretched hand indicates the man who had been standing beside him earlier. “My father.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Joao,” Enjolras’s dad greets, reaching out to shake the other dad’s hand. 

“Sure,” comes the gruff response. The handshake is succinct and firm before the man turns. “You must be Enjolras, then.”

Swallowing, Enjolras nods. A distant part of him had known that he might be meeting Grantaire’s father today, but it’s another thing entirely to finally be facing the man himself after hearing so much about him. “It’s good to meet you.”

A long, hard look comes in response before Grantaire’s father dips his head once. “You’ve been good for my son.”

His words stammer. “The pleasure is mine, Grantaire is—” Pausing, he organizes his thoughts. “Wonderful. He’s wonderful in every way.”

There’s a sensation of fingers weaving their way between his, and he feels Grantaire give his hand a squeeze.

“You must be very proud to have raised such an upstanding son,” Enjolras’s mom commends.

The beginnings of a smile begins to crack at the rough exterior of Mr. Grantaire’s face. “Yes, well. He didn’t make it easy.”

Beside him, Grantaire nods uncomfortably. 

Seeming to sense the tension, Enjolras’s dad smiles even wider. “So, doing anything special to celebrate the big day?”

If anything, it might have the opposite of the intended effect. “I traded shifts to come, and my mother can’t afford the trip up to visit.” His face remains rigid, but disappointment pinches his features.

“I was just gonna go out with some of the guys from the team,” Grantaire explains.

“Well if you need to leave and Grantaire doesn’t mind, we could take him off your hands for you,” Enjolras’s dad offers. “We’d be happy to have him, and graduating high school is a huge milestone. I’m glad you were able to make it here.”

"Me too." A hint of the pride that Enjolras had seen before during the photos begins to peek through again. "You know, Junior is the first in my family to graduate.”

“You must be extremely proud of him,” Enjolras’s mom nods sincerely. “And Enjolras says he’s going to college after? On a full-ride scholarship?”

“Yes, he—” The man’s eyes begin to shine as he sniffs sharply, looking down briefly before looking back at Enjolras’s parents. Next to him, Grantaire looks surprised. “He’s done good for himself.”

“And I’m sure you’ve played a big role in that,” Enjolras’s mom assures, smiling. 

“He has,” says Grantaire softly, hand raising cautiously to his dad’s shoulder.

Mr. Grantaire clears his throat abruptly, shaking off the hand. “Well, I uh. I have to be off to that shift.” Blinking rapidly, he turns to his son. “You have fun with your…your boyfriend’s family now, okay? Be back before 9, your _avó_ will want to hear from you at a decent hour.”

“Okay,” Grantaire says, nodding. His voice sounds shaky, but he wears a tentative smile, eyes bright with unshed tears. “I’ll see you then.”

Mr. Grantaire pauses as if debating saying more, but a moment later he turns away and starts toward the parking lot.

They all stand in silence for a beat before Enjolras’s dad takes control of the conversation again: “So, Grantaire, anywhere you want to eat?”

Grantaire chooses a Chuck E Cheese. Whether this is done to intentionally annoy Enjolras or not is unclear, but a not-insignificant part of himself suspects that the choice isn’t as ironic as his boyfriend had made it out to be.

“So, Grantaire,” Enjolras’s mother begins while they wait on their pizza. Unsurprisingly, Grantaire and Enjolras are the only non-parents above the age of eight—certainly the only people in caps and gowns. “What is it you do outside of school?”

Panic flickers across Grantaire’s features, and Enjolras doesn’t know how to indicate to Grantaire that this is fine, that his parents already adore his boyfriend, that it was merely an accident that the topic never came up.

“Um. I play sports, mostly. I did a bit of rugby in the spring season, but uh,” here Grantaire swallows, “mostly football.”

“Football!” Enjolras’s mom repeats, delighted. “Is that what your scholarship is for, then?”

The response leaves Grantaire looking a bit confused, but his answer comes more confidently this time. “Uh, yeah. Full-ride to Brown.”

“So _you’re_ the reason Enjolras became so interested in Ivy Leagues all of a sudden,” concludes Enjolras’s dad, betrayer of all and savior of none. “You know, he was always so dead-set against the whole institution—classism and nepotism, which isn’t untrue but definitely doesn’t hurt if you’re going to study politics and law—”

“Sounds like Enjolras,” Grantaire comments, sounding more sure of himself as the corner of his mouth twitches upward. In the meantime, Enjolras is focusing his energy into calling on what is hopefully a dormant invisibility power, though he’ll also accept teleportation. So far, it doesn’t seem like Professor X is going to be showing up at his door anytime soon. 

“So imagine our surprise when April rolls around and our son informs us that he’ll be attending Brown!” 

“We didn’t even know he’d applied,” his mom adds. 

He isn’t sure if he can disown his parents after becoming a legal adult, but it’s becoming a more intriguing concept by the second.

The table is quiet for a beat, and Enjolras chances a glance up at where his boyfriend is seated beside him. Grantaire’s expression is frozen, and Enjolras watches in mute horror as the man slowly turns to look at him, eyes wide.

 _This is it. This is the step too far._ Brown’s a big campus, that had been the plan originally anyway: if they broke up before September, he could always stay far away from football games and the philosophy buildings. Screen his gen eds for the man in advance. Dive into bushes when necessary. Their paths need never have crossed. 

And now Grantaire knows, he knows Enjolras made giant life-altering plans around the possibility that they might last until, well, until after their bachelor’s degrees, maybe longer, and— 

A kiss lands on his cheek, so quick that he almost isn’t sure it occurs. He becomes much more certain once his boyfriend leans down to whisper,

_“Gayyyyyyyyyyyyy.”_

Blushing, Enjolras pushes the ridiculous man away. “You’re the worst.”

“You’re the one dating me,” Grantaire reminds him with a shoulder-bump. Across the table from them, Enjolras is pretty sure his parents have actual, literal stars in their eyes.

Their waiter chooses that moment to appear with their two large pizzas, and as soon as they disappear everyone present begins to dig inelegantly into their lunch.

“So Grantaire,” Enjolras’s dad starts between bites with renewed vigor, “Enjolras has probably already told you this—”

“I wouldn’t be so sure, Sir.”

“—but do you know how I met his mother?”

Enjolras sighs deeply before taking another bite of his cheeseless veggie pizza.

“I don’t,” Grantaire responds, pausing at his food.

“Well, I was a cornerstone on the cheerleading team, and Enjolras’s mom was—you’ll appreciate this—our school’s first-ever female football player. A kicker.”

Enjolras’s mom nods proudly, mouth full of pizza, as Grantaire’s jaw drops.

“No fucking _way.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The snare drummer is Eponine, the bass drummer who is lined up to take Enjolras's place is Gavroche.

**Author's Note:**

> Note: university isn't inherently better or worse in any way than a technical school, R just wanted to be able to make that decision for himself rather than having fate force the cheaper option onto him.
> 
> Happy holidays! If you enjoyed this, please feel free to leave a comment below!!


End file.
